


Bittersweet

by kaalee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ficlet, Incest, M/M, Slash, The Quidditch Pitch: The Changing Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-16
Updated: 2008-07-16
Packaged: 2018-10-26 15:06:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10789137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaalee/pseuds/kaalee
Summary: [Bill/Charlie]  In the night after the Quidditch World Cup, Bill sees something that throws his sense of reality into question.





	Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** This was written for rillathegrape in the [](http://community.livejournal.com/hpvalensmut/profile)[**hpvalensmut**](http://community.livejournal.com/hpvalensmut/) exchange. I'd neither read nor written much Charlie or Bill in my fandom life, so this was both a wonderful and scary challenge for me. Thank you dearly to [](http://shikishi.livejournal.com/profile)[**shikishi**](http://shikishi.livejournal.com/) and [](http://slashfairy.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://slashfairy.livejournal.com/)**slashfairy** for the helpful beta work. This is set during _Goblet of Fire_ , in the night scene after the Quidditch World Cup.

**Bittersweet** ****  
Bill/Charlie, R  
  
  
~*~*~

  
  
Screams and bursts of light shatter the sky. The air around him smells like fear and sulphur and wet leaves.  
  
And he runs.  
  
He runs with his brothers toward the three terrified Muggles twirling and wailing in the air.   
  
It seems to Bill that the Muggles are too far above the ground to get a sense of how frightened they really are. He's frightened and he's on the ground with his brothers - a grown wizard with a wand and years of self-defense under his belt. He can't imagine how they feel.  
  
And they run.  
  
A muffled curse sounds and he sees Percy leap over a jet of red light, agile almost in spite of his ambition. Here in the thick forest they run faster than they could fly and Bill is worried.  
  
Worried because the element of protection that he always provides his younger siblings at home is nearly gone here. Here in the forest where they’re running.   
  
A giant voice booms with an incantation and the trees are flooded in the dark dried-blood red of angry spells and he turns to look at Charlie, sees his brother’s brow wrinkled in concentration. They know how to block these spells, but will they be enough? Enough to save and protect and _prevent_? Charlie looks at him, catches his eye, and nods. Bill reaches out to touch Charlie’s hand before they split up – run in two different paths around the tall tree blocking their way. Bill stays with Percy. As the oldest, he still needs to take care of his brothers.  
  
The Muggles float slowly to the ground in the careful beams of blue light from seven wizards' wands, but curses still fly. Percy blocks three at once and yells, "Bill!" and Bill sees a hooded form running toward him with a magically-accelerated gait. Bill stuns him, flips the figure to the ground, and turns back to Percy.   
  
And he stops.  
  
Bill moves slowly toward his brother and they simultaneously look over toward Charlie.  
  
Charlie, who is like a lithe freight train.  
  
Charlie, who can work with dragons and see horrors that become his everyday existence and still have fourteen new jokes to tell his brothers when he comes home. Charlie, who holds the record in every place he’s ever been for "Slap" and "Chicken" and "Knock your brother off his broom." Charlie, who is probably the strongest person Bill knows.  
  
Charlie, who is not with them.   
  
They block spells and hexes and Percy reaches out to grasp Bill’s forearm as someone runs by, jarring them. Bill puts his hand over Percy's, steadying them both, and they turn to see Charlie running toward an advancing group of black hoods.  
  
Percy calls out to them - surprising them and Bill - and when the figures turn toward Percy's voice, Charlie stuns four of them and leaps over a rock in one movement. Charlie points at something behind them and Bill grabs Percy's hand and squeezes it before they, too, split up.  
  
And he runs.  
  
He runs because the Muggles are safe – in a manner of speaking – but the hooded dark menaces are still around, everywhere, their roaring laughter filling the forest and Charlie is still not with him. Now Percy isn't, either.  
  
Bill watches Charlie run ahead and sends a hex hurtling over his own left shoulder as he turns back to check on Percy and then an incongruous movement in the corner of his eye wavers and he looks over to see Charlie suddenly trip.  
  
Trip and _fall._  
  
Charlie never falls. Charlie is called "magic feet" and "tree trunk" because he is the most solid person that anyone knows. He has balance and concentration like no other. Charlie works with dragons, in part, because he has such impeccable balance and control and can withstand any sort of surprise that might be thrown at him.  
  
A sickening, greenish glow of a Mark floats up into the air and panic gushes through Bill's bloodstream, bubbling up into his throat and then there is a sharp pain bursting through his arm and Bill grabs onto it, his hand slipping through something warm and wet...  
  
And he runs.  
  
He runs wildly, angrily toward Charlie; when he gets there Charlie’s eyes are open and he’s breathing and he looks... he looks... alive.  
  
He presses his hand against Charlie’s cheek, cupping it, and he smiles. Then Bill notices the blood on his cheek and the fear that was coiled in his stomach erupts and he turns away and vomits onto the dark, grey ground.   
  
Charlie sits up and pulls him, drags him to his chest _hard_ , and says in a sharp voice, "Bill. _Bill!_ " and when Bill turns to look at him, Charlie takes Bill’s hand and holds it out, "The blood is from _you._ You’re cut. Are you hurt? Bill? Bill, _please._ "  
  
And he is.  
  
He _is_ cut. It must've happened when he wasn't paying attention – when he was riveted to his younger brother tripping and falling through a wrinkle in time and pulling them both into another dimension. A dimension where solid freckled redheads fall in front of their brothers, where the air is clouded with the acrid taste of spells and smoke and dread. A dimension where things don't feel completely right and Bill has the overwhelming urge to heal his brother with his lips.  
  
A dimension where time passes in staccato ripples and is immeasurable with a clock.

~*~*~

  
  
And they walk.   
  
People seemed to have stopped their panic and the figures are gone now. The forest feels eerily calm. They silently agree not to Apparate back to their tent without Percy. Bill wishes he had a watch like the grandfather clock their mother keeps in the front room. A watch like that wouldn't keep time, but Bill has no need of time out here in the forest.  
  
Charlie's shirt is torn from the fall and he's pulled his handkerchief out to press against the deep cut on Bill's arm and they breathe together. Breathe together until Percy staggers out from behind rough ground or a fence or a hill and they fall in step beside each other, _together._  
  
And they walk.

~*~*~

  
  
Now his brother snores in a bed six feet away and Bill is _aching._ His arm throbs with the pulsing blood of worry and anticipation gone wrong. He knows that he’s not the only one awake in the room; he can still hear Harry’s breathing speeding and slowing in the stale air, so he doesn’t crawl into Charlie’s bed the way he used to when they were younger and Charlie had nightmares.  
  
And he breathes.  
  
He thinks maybe he should curl up with Charlie; after all, they were both hurt. This time _he_ may have nightmares about watching Charlie fall.  
  
Things have gone back to normal. Maybe. After Ron, Hermione, and Harry filled them all in they had a snack as people tried to laugh and joke again... but Charlie only watched him.  
  
Bill sighs, wondering if things really _do_ feel normal to anyone else. Maybe when he wakes things will feel genuine to him again. But, when a swish of wind whispers through and Charlie's ripped shirt - hung up to dry - flutters in the corner, he knows. He knows as clear as the stark rip in Charlie's shirt that things are _not_ the same.  
  
Charlie snores, Harry breathes, and the wind whispers.  
  
And he cries.

~*~*~

  
  
It's always been a joke in their family. Molly Weasley believes that dessert cures all ills, or at least pushes them aside for a while. She'd been muttering all day, quietly rebuking herself for letting her last conversation with Fred and George be one of disapproval and upset.   
  
Bill catches Charlie's eye when their mum brings chocolate cake over to the table and Charlie asks who she is trying to make feel better this time.  
  
Everyone knows that chocolate cake is the twins' favorite. As is their routine, the twins get the first pieces and then everyone else is served, still talking about their impromptu Quidditch match from that afternoon. Charlie gives Harry a hard time about nearly falling off his broom when he caught the snitch and Bill reminds Charlie that the only time Percy ever played with them, he snatched it right from under Charlie's nose.  
  
George remarks that Charlie will only admit to it because Percy isn't at dinner that night.  
  
And they laugh.  
  
It's almost a normal dinner.

~*~*~

  
  
Charlie brings a slice of chocolate cake into the little makeshift bedroom that their mum always makes up when all of the children are home; she hangs heavy, torn velvet curtains up at the edge of the family room and conjures two lumpy mattresses for the floor.  
  
Bill looks up as Charlie walks in and smiles, "You eat like you've never had _sugar_ before."  
  
Charlie laughs and holds it above Bill's head, threatening, and then lowers it down toward Bill's mouth, "Oh, you're just jealous because I thought to get the last piece before Ronnie wakes up in the morning and eats it."  
  
Then Bill grabs his wrist, grinning, and the cake shakes a little. They watch as it drops into Bill's other hand.  
  
And they laugh.  
  
Charlie reaches down to pick it up, squeezing it between his fingers a little before he drops it again into Bill's hand. Bill pushes the cake back into Charlie's hand and it, surprisingly, still looks appetizing. Their hands are covered with icing, sticky-hot as it oozes between their fingers in the sultry summer air. Bill pushes it back into Charlie's hand again and remembers when they were nine and seven and they tried to make a cake for their mum to surprise her and she had come back from the garden with a pile of herbs and dropped them into a scatter pattern on the floor when she saw her sons covered with icing.  
  
"Do you remember when we- " Charlie starts, and Bill nods. It's not the first time they've had the same thought. When Charlie lifts his index finger to his mouth and licks a line over the dark, dark sticky icing coating his knuckles, something rips low in Bill's stomach and he feels like panting.  
  
And he looks down.  
  
Charlie's tongue was a legend with the girls at Hogwarts – apparently he'd not needed the book that all the Gryffindor boys above fourth year were privy to, hidden behind the portrait of Esmeralda Fortinbras in the common room. The book had been stolen from a Muggle library, signed by four legendary Gryffindors from the 1970's, and hidden. Every Gryffindor boy learned important lessons from that book.   
  
Charlie, though, had scoffed at learning about women's and men's bodies from a _book_.   
  
"How can you possibly learn how to touch someone from a book?" he'd asked. "The way you learn how to touch someone is to _touch them._ And then you listen and find out what makes them feel good and you keep doing that. But, then you do it harder and softer and _different_ and then you listen. That's the only proper way to learn."  
  
Bill remembers overhearing one of the seventh year prefects talking about Charlie with breathless description, "He just knew," she told the other girls, "He was everywhere and so gentle, but _strong_ ," and Bill had heard them sigh with longing. It was not the first time he'd been fascinated by hearing others talk about his brother.  
  
Charlie licks his finger again, draws the knuckle in - almost absently - and sucks. Bill watches him this time, wondering... hoping... not knowing if this time their thoughts are mirrors.  
  
Charlie pulls his finger out slowly and _looks_ at Bill, knuckles clean, eyes dirty with want.  
  
And he _knows._  
  
That other dimension rips open again – the dimension where things are not right and not what they seem because Bill wants to taste every inch of Charlie's iced fingers – to touch him and _hold_ that solid body.  
  
So he tangles their fingers together, leans forward, and pushes his lips tentatively against the nibbled softness of his brother's. Bill has kissed too many people in his life to be doing this with such a lack of finesse but he can't stop. He has to. Has to. Their teeth bang together and Bill wonders why they can click so well in everything but they can't get _this_ right. He closes his eyes and wishes that they could please, please _please_...  
  
And they do.  
  
Their lips find a rhythm; Charlie's lips go up when Bill's go down and their tongues trade tender swipes. It lasts for minutes or hours or _years_ and suddenly a creak on the stairs sounds like panic. Charlie's fingers clench stickily around his at the sound. There's a moment of breathy anticipation when Bill pulls back. He sees Charlie's eyes shut and his lips full and nothing - _nothing_ \- feels wrong about this.  
  
He leans back in and this time presses his tongue into Charlie's mouth with assurance. Charlie strokes the underside and then sucks Bill's tongue into his mouth with a low rumble in the back of his throat. Bill echoes Charlie's moan, feeling his insides smolder, and tastes every corner of Charlie's mouth.   
  
_Bittersweet,_ he thinks.  
  
Bill pulls their joined fingers up to his mouth and sucks the sugary-sweet mess in. Charlie's lips part in a silent moan and he watches Bill's mouth with unconcealed hunger. The air is thickening around them and Bill has to concentrate when he pushes forward to suck Charlie's tongue.  
  
Charlie's hand slides into his lap, unbuttoning, and Bill wants wants _wants_ to be touched everywhere and he whispers words into the chocolate air as his brother gently bites his neck. " _Charlie_ ," he whispers. Then, "Yes," and " _Oh_." He reaches for Charlie's zip and unfastens his brother's trousers with a nearly unconscious movement. A muffled grunt vibrates on his neck before he even touches.   
  
Charlie's cock is short and hard and _thick_ and it warms Bill's hand like the afternoon sun.  
  
He strokes slowly, squeezing and making tiny twists that seem to push shuddering breaths from Charlie's mouth. He reaches to pull off Charlie's trousers and Charlie arches up with him, pushing his cock into Bill's fist.   
  
The dark velvet hanging around them absorbs the sound of skin and gasps and need.  
  
Bill shifts and Charlie leans back against the wall, hitting his head with a hollow thump, "Bill, _fuck_ , yes," The moans and words sound like a perfect, practiced language that Bill can only understand when he is touching his brother everywhere... He kneels in front of Charlie, kicking off his own trousers, and sliding the thumb of his other hand up the quivering muscle on the inside of Charlie's thigh.  
  
Charlie sucks in a ragged breath and Bill licks his palm, coating it, and slides it along Charlie's cock in slow, deliberate strokes. He leans forward and brushes Charlie's ear with his lips, voice low, "Tell me..."  
  
Charlie bends his knees impossibly hard and hisses, "Yes... _need_ you..."  
  
If words could cause explosions, Bill thinks he might be in the hospital now.  
  
Charlie pulls him forward and crushes their lips together and he realizes that it's hard to kiss with any sort of brilliance when your entire being feels channeled through your hand.  
  
And then Charlie pants, "God, _Bill_ ," and pushes him back on the other mattress, and Bill isn't scared at all; he's only here and ready and _yes_ he wants this.  
  
Charlie's fingers tangle in the dark, sensitive hair at the base of his cock and when he presses two-fingers under his sac sparks shoot behind Bill's eyes. Charlie presses the flat of his tongue against his cock and slides it up, up and sucks the entire head into his mouth and _god,_ Bill can barely stand how good it feels.  
  
He wonders if whimpering carries better in humid, sticky air and he squeezes his eyes shut, his hair catching on the pillow when he twists his head back and forth.  
  
And now Charlie's mouth swallows him and sucks and he can feel it in his _teeth_.  
  
"Against me," he manages to gasp out, pulling Charlie on top of him and laying back on the conjured, lumpy, _perfect_ mattress. They rock their bodies together and the roaring in Bill's ear suddenly turns into Charlie's voice. A wash of spicy cologne and chocolate sifts into his nose and fills him. Bill spreads his legs wider and suddenly he can feel every inch of his cock pressed against and sliding over Charlie's. It almost can't get any better. He pushes and groans and tears leak from his eyes when Charlie sucks his finger into his mouth and whispers, "Bittersweet."  
  
Charlie's head drops onto his shoulder and threads of hair tangle on Bill's tongue and teeth when he opens his mouth. Charlie is moving faster now, breath coming fast on Bill's neck, and Bill thinks: _right_ and _ready_ and _mine_ and...  
  
He. Can't. Stop. This.  
  
He presses his feet flat and lifts his buttocks off the mattress, pushing and meeting every slippery, wonderful thrust.  
  
And he _oh-_   
  
Molten spasms spread through his body like melting butter and things start to dissolve into a muddled world of lush red lips and freckles. He slides and shudders and comes _hard_ and it feels like the warm velvet of the curtains has covered him. When Charlie shudders above him, Bill can still barely move. Long minutes pass and they look at each other through matching lidded eyes. Smiling, Charlie drags a sticky finger up to brush his hair out of Bill's mouth.  
  
And he thinks.  
  
It might be the best thing ever.  
  
Wind shifts outside and a cool breeze gently cuts the humidity that had settled around them. Then the dimension closes up again, or maybe it doesn't, and Bill turns them over, pulling Charlie against him and matching the freckles on his chest to the freckles on Charlie's back in a makeshift dot-to-dot.  
  
And he sleeps.  
  
The clouds shift and spill light onto their freckled, sleeping forms and this time – _this_ time – there are no nightmares.

~*~*~

  
  
Thank you so much for reading! ♥


End file.
